China’s troubled manufacturing sector looks set to have recovered this month after more than a year of decline, fuelling hopes that the world’s secondlargest economy may have sidestepped a potentially catastrophic “hard landing”.

The preliminary “flash” reading of the HSBC purchasing managers’ index, a closely watched survey of manufacturing sentiment, rose to 50.3 in November from 49.5 last month, the first time in 13 months that the gauge has risen out of contraction.

The ray of light from China’s factory sector reinforces an emerging consensus that the economy may have averted a dangerously sharp slowdown, after GDP growth cooled rapidly